Practicalities of integrated advertising sales: “you are a digital company with printing presses”

By Kirk MacDonald

AAssuming we have made the case in previous blogs for why the Denver Post's Integrated Sales Model is imperative to a newspaper’s ability to compete and survive in an increasingly furious media environment, it is time to take a look at how the model works in a live sales situation.

Last week our account team, along with President/CEO Jerry Grilly and myself, were meeting with the corporate and regional executives for the largest automotive group in the U.S. Our team included the classified advertising vice president, the account rep and the manager of Ad Taxi, our digital ad network.

In a three-hour presentation, our focus was on five areas:

Establishing a consistent weekly ROP schedule for 2011.

Create an effective service campaign on five of our platforms (print, digital, mobile, social, e-mail).

Our presentation/proposal was developed beforehand in conjunction with the regional marketing director so we were on target with our objectives. Our recommendations complimented and worked in conjunction with the advertiser’s internal digital and social media resources so we immediately had a partnership bond and the advertiser’s trust.

And while the presentation went well, it's all about the end result. Were we able to generate increased revenue as a result of our ability to provide solutions that went beyond what we had proposed even a year ago? I’ll update this blog when we find out.

We do know this much: We have an unbeatable total audience. We can deliver a broad range of customized solutions on multiple platforms that are attractive to advertisers. Most of our competitors are selling or relying on one-dimensional solutions. As a result, we have a strong competitive advantage that is the power of the Integrated Sales Model.

Which translated into this response from the client: “You are a digital company with printing presses.”